December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve Traditions

I know that it is Christmas Eve, and it's been a full holiday season, but we just wanted to share a few of our family Christmas Eve traditions with you and hope you'll do the same! It's never to late to start a tradition and help make your holidays even more merry.

Laura: Our holiday season has been full of traditions like making paper snowflakes, Christmas crafts, watching Christmas movies, baking, delivering goodies, singing and even a little shopping. When Christmas Eve rolls around, hopefully there's not much left to do but enjoy family time. We LOVE to drive around the neighborhoods on Christmas Eve to see all of their lights. This year we may even use Valerie's scavenger hunt sheet: what a good idea! Once we're back at home it's time for some hot cocoa, christmas pajamas, and our annual ornament exchange. You can see the ornament I'm giving my boys here, but I just love giving them one each year to add to their personal collection. We've also been reading one scripture story about Jesus every night since December 1st, so we will finish our list and all of our advents. Then it's bedtime, wrapping presents time and the nervous excitement that comes before Christmas morning. I just can't believe it's here already!

Valerie: For us, Christmas Eve is a big family day. I usually spend the day cooking and baking our big Christmas Eve dinner. After we eat, we play a game, read the Christmas Story in the scriptures, and then our siblings exchange gifts. Each sibling buys for one other, and it alternates every year. The kids really enjoy picking out something special for their brother or sister. We end our night by putting out cookies and milk for Santa, and send the kids off to dream of sugarplums-- or Legos, at least!

This year we are going to let the kids act out the nativity. They are really excited to try this out, and I hope it will become a fun new tradition!

If you are still looking for that special something to do on Christmas Eve, maybe some of these ideas would appeal to you:

How about watching a classic holiday movie? I just watched White Christmas for the first time this week!

*Updated- our old link was broken so here's some more great ideas! Cozi.com shares 50 great ideas here. I love the idea of "camping out" in front of the Christmas tree one night. My kids would LOVE that!

Parenting.com has another great roundup here. My favorite: A Magic Key for those without a fireplace!

Whatever you do this Christmas Eve, we hope you have a wonderful day with your family. We'll be taking most of the week off to spend time with our own families, so we'll see you in a few days! Merry Christmas!